‘The thought of never playing for England again because of a terrible decision that I made was the worst feeling in the world,’ says Marlie Packer.
Photograph: Jill Mead for the Guardian

Marlie Packer remembers it as a gorgeous August Saturday. Saracens had a pre-season friendly. She was still recovering from an operation, so didn’t play, but spent the day running out the water bottles. They won handily, and afterwards everyone went to the pub. It was the first time the whole squad had been back together since they won the Premiership final three months earlier. “Everyone’s spirits were really good,” Packer says. She had two drinks. “I didn’t really think about it, I didn’t feel drunk or anything like that, I was just in a good mood. We all were.” And then she drove home.

It’s a long way from Saracens’ home ground to Packer’s house in Twickenham and she was most of the way there when it happened. Coming down the Kew Road she saw a car come rushing up to a junction ahead. She was sure it was going to pull out, so swerved into the other lane to avoid it. Her van clipped the back of an oncoming car, the airbags exploded, and her van smacked into the kerb. Through the shock, she felt certain she wasn’t hurt, so she unbuckled herself, opened the door and ran around behind to check on the people in the car she had hit. Mercifully, they were fine too.

The police came quickly. They asked Packer whether she had been drinking, she said yes, earlier in the evening. They took her to the station in Kingston. “And at this point,” she says, “every possibility was going through my head.” She started to think about the damage she had done, about the embarrassment she had caused her partner, who works in the police force, and about all the other people she had let down, her bosses at the plumbing company, who owned the van, her coaches and teammates at Saracens and England, her mother, and her grandparents.

“I thought it was all over. I’d lose my job and lose my rugby, lose the thing I love doing, the thing I strive to be better at every day of my life. There’s no feeling in the world like putting on that white shirt with that red rose. It doesn’t matter whether you’re playing in any other country or here at Twickenham, there’s just no better feeling.” And now, she was sure, she would never have it again. “The thought of never playing for England again, not because of any injury, or because there’s better players, but because of a terrible decision that I made, it was the worst feeling in the world.”

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Packer, now 29, is still anguished about it, months later. It seems to me that while she ought to hate her mistake, she should count her blessings too. Be glad no one was hurt or worse. But instead she seems to be tormented by what the mistake cost, and the thought of what she almost lost. “My whole livelihood, my happiness, everything.” She is clearly nervous about doing this interview, and answers in those long monologues people use when they are recalling traumatic events.

Packer started playing when she was five. She grew up in Yeovil, the youngest child of a single mum. “The mother of one of my friends from school took us to the rugby club and my mum thought we were just going to be watching so she dressed me up in a red top that had these crinkle frills around the neck and arms.” She hated it, but “it was one of those tops your mum loves to put you in”. When she came home later that afternoon it was caked in so much mud that her mum threw it straight in the bin. “I never had to wear that red top again,” she says. “Result.”

Marlie Packer carries the ball during the Six Nations match against Wales in 2018. Photograph: Adam Davy/PA

From then on, it was football every Saturday and rugby every Sunday. “I’ve got a little bit of ‘no fear’ in me and that’s always shone out.” She played mixed rugby all the way through to the second year of secondary school, “when I stepped out of hockey so I could go play rugby with the boys,” she says. “One of my old coaches from back then always texts me before a big game, and she puts a hashtag on the end of her messages: #onlyagirl. Because that’s what they used to say when I played against the boys: ‘She’s only a girl: you can tackle her.’” They couldn’t.

In a way Packer’s England career started when she made a similar mistake to the one she was sure had finished it for her. In 2007, just after she had got her licence, she was charged with drink-driving. “I was a very different person back then,” she says. “A lot can happen in 11 years of a person’s life. And for me that was a very different situation I got myself into. But it was a massive wake-up call. It made me realise that being an international rugby player was what I really wanted.” Twelve years later, the back-rower has over a half-century of caps and a World Cup winner’s medal.

Now, she felt, “it’s all over, I’m going to never play for England again, I’m going to have 59 caps for England and it’s done.” She was so ashamed that she did not tell anyone what had happened. “My mum knew, my partner, a close friend.” She dreaded telling the rest of her family and friends, all the people “that are really proud of me”. Especially her grandparents. “My nan who I’m really close to, I speak to her every few days, whereas in this time I’d been speaking to her much less. She knew there was something up, but she didn’t know what and I wasn’t telling her.”

For them to support me, to say we’re not going to punish you in your rugby, is massive. But it’s not been an easy ride

Eventually the England squad met up for what they call a values day. “I couldn’t be planning for this future when I had this hanging over me and I’m not being honest about it,” Packer says. “But I just didn’t really know how to tell people.” She finally spoke to the forwards coach, Richard Blaze. “A few words came out of his mouth. Idiot was definitely one of them. Then he said: ‘Have you spoken to anyone?’ And I said: ‘I don’t really know how to,’ but he told me I had to.

“So right at the end of the day I spoke to the head of performance [Nicky Ponsford] and I said to her: ‘You know when I mess up it’s not, like, a small mess, but it’s a catastrophic thing, well …’” They made an appointment with the head coach, Simon Middleton. They met in a little room at Twickenham. Packer broke down in tears then, and she does again now. When Ponsford said: “We’re not going to punish you,” Packer got this great lump in the back of her throat. “Just with the relief, it wasn’t over, I’m still an England player.”

Other players have been dropped for similar offences. In 2012 Danny Care was cut from the England squad when he was caught drink-driving. But the RFU decided that Packer needed their support. “I think for the RFU the thing was it’s something that was dealt with away from rugby, it was dealt with in the courts, and that’s how they saw it, the punishment for me was I could lose my job, lose my livelihood, I wouldn’t be able to get around to training. I think for them to support me, to say we’re not going to punish you in your rugby, is massive. But it’s not been an easy ride, don’t think they’ve not given me the talking-to that I’ve needed.”

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She was eventually banned from driving for 17 months and fined £461. When the news finally came out England were in the middle of their autumn series. “It was soul destroying.” Packer has been an amateur most of her life, she didn’t play the game for money, but love. Which might be why this affected her so much. But soon after she resigned from the plumbing job, and took up a full-time contract with England. It is a new start. Now all she is thinking about is England’s first match of the Six Nations, against Ireland in Dublin, a week on Friday.

“I made a couple of resolutions,” she says. “I’m currently on dry January, which is something I thought I’d do. And I’ve given up chocolate too. And I’m trying to be more positive, not to dwell on the negatives, just keep looking forward. I’m a bit more of a senior player now. If you’d asked me five years ago I’d have said: ‘Yeah I’m going to play rugby forever,’ but now I’m in my latter stages of playing for England. So I want to make sure I grab it all and never let go of it until it’s the right time. And I don’t know how long I’ve got left, but I want to make the most of it.”